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News Nearby: Eye Kandy Boutique Brings Fashion Finds to Harmony.

When Kandy Barkley was scoping out the Center of Harmony as a potential location for her clothing boutique, it wasn’t just the space that caught her eye—it was the refrigerator.
“When I came in here, I fell in love with it,” she said.
To be fair, this isn’t just any old refrigerator Barkley is talking about. It’s an antique, floor-to-ceiling decorative cooler that once was used by a butcher in the former Otto & Gert’s building in the heart of historic Harmony.
“It actually functions, too,” Barkley said.
Today, the unique piece occupies a prime space in Barkley’s new clothing boutique, Eye Kandy.
Located inside The Center of Harmony—which also houses several other businesses and an event space—Eye Kandy opened Aug. 1. The boutique features women’s clothing at a variety of price points, handbags, belts and other accessories.
“It’s more one-of-a-kind stuff,” Barkley said of the boutique’s style.
A Seneca Valley alumni who grew up and lives in Harmony, Barkley said she carefully chose each piece in the store to reflect comfort, style and a flattering fit—for all body types.
“The main thing when I look at clothes is how it will look on a women’s body,” she said.
Prior to opening Eye Kandy, Barkley was vice-president of finance at her family’s business, Knichel Logistics in Gibsonia. After taking a break from the business to deal with a health issue, Barkley said she found herself wanting to do something different.
Enter Angela Dawson.
The owner of A. Dawson Apparel Group, which specializes in women’s wholesale clothing and accessories, Dawson, of Jackson Township, is a clothing representative for about a dozen brands.
Barkley, who is friends with Dawson, said she began selling Dawson’s sample items from her own home in trunk shows. It wasn’t long before she decided to open her own boutique.
“I thought wow, this is great,” Barkley said of being inspired to open her own shop. “Everyone loved everything so much.”

Good Dirt Gone Dry Wilting Corn Crop as Food Costs Rally.
Tom Flora walked into one of his corn fields in Delphi, Indiana, last week to survey land that until last month he expected would yield a bigger-than-average harvest. Eight rows in, he declared the crop a total loss.

“I’ve never seen this,” 63-year-old Flora said as he fingered the wilted brown leaves on a four-foot corn stalk that was half the normal height for this time of year and had cobs almost devoid of kernels. “This is good dirt here, but not this year. It’s too dry. I doubt this will produce anything.” The worst Midwest drought since 1988 is baking farms from Arkansas to Ohio and threatening corn output that the U.S. said last week will be the second-largest ever. The price of the grain used in food for people and livestock is surging at a time when retail-meat costs already are near record highs. Global food prices are poised to rebound from a 21-month low in June because of weaker-than-expected supply in the U.S., the world’s largest corn exporter, the United Nations said July 5.

With forecasters including AccuWeather Inc. predicting worsening conditions in the next month, corn traded in Chicago surged by $2.665 a bushel since mid-June, or 53 percent. The rally is adding to pressure on the livestock industry because cattle feedlots are already losing as much as $200 an animal. Sanderson Farms Inc. (SAFM), the third-largest U.S. poultry producer, said every 10-cent corn increase boosts costs by $2.21 million.

Corn advanced 22 percent this month to $7.7225 on the Chicago Board of Trade, the most among 24 commodities in the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index, which rose 5.2 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index of equities fell 0.9 percent and the U.S. Dollar Index gained 1.8 percent. Treasuries returned 0.9 percent, a Bank of America Corp. index shows.

Geography and Culture.

Russia has part of its roots in European culture where the ideas of goodness, honor, and freedom are understood as in the West. The Viking raiders came from the North. Traders from Scandinavia also settled. They became the rulers of Rus, the city-principality of Kiev and forerunner of the Russian state. The other part of Russia has Asian roots. The Mongols, [Tartars] conquered Moscow in 1234 and Kiev in 1240, and ruled with despotism, invaders unstoppable, making Russians their slaves. Russian blood is a mixture of Slavic, Finnish, and Tatar. Kievan Rus had converted to Orthodox Christianity in 988. When Moscow liberated itself from the Tartar yoke in 1480, the modern Russian state was born. Distant from Europe, the new state was cut off from Constantinople which in 1453 had fallen to the Muslim Ottoman Turks. The Russian Orthodox Church, isolated from the rest of Christianity, developed independently as a national church. Russia regarded itself as the third and Last Rome, successor to Rome and Constantinople, the two capitals of the Roman Empire which had fallen to barbarians and infidels. It’s mission as the new center of Christianity was to unite the people of the East and West. The rulers of Russia began to use the title tsar, derived from Caesar. Remote from the West, Russia experienced none of the major developments which shaped modern Europe. The Renaissance happened in the West, with its revival of classical influence and the flowering of the arts, development of modern agriculture and commerce, the scientific revolution, economic liberalism and recognition of individual rights, the beginnings of political liberty, and the growth of a strong middle class. In the West, the middle class was in the forefront of reform. Russia’s failure to develop a strong middle class delayed reform. Russia remained a vast, backward, largely agriculture empire, regimented and ruled by an autocratic dynasty with a holy mission to defend its faith against the barbarians of the East and the heresies and pluralism of the West. Thus, to remote Russia, many things “Western” have come late – manufacturing, higher education, science, etc.